Fresno-Based Community College District Gets on the San Joaquin Valley Project Labor Agreement Train

After years of consideration, the elected board of the State Center Community College District (in Fresno County) has scheduled a vote for March 10, 2020 to require construction companies to sign a Project Labor Agreement as a condition of winning a contract. The target is the $86.5 million West Fresno Campus, Phase 1.

In an acknowledgment that Project Labor Agreements do indeed cut bid competition, the District will be encouraging businesses owned by District graduates to bid on the project by exempting them from the Project Labor Agreement. Graduate-owned businesses would not have to comply with the terms and conditions in the Project Labor Agreement.

Company owners who did not graduate from this institution of higher education will have to sign the Project Labor Agreement and fulfill the terms and conditions. These include obtaining workers from the union hiring hall dispatching system and sending payments for worker fringe benefits to union-affiliated trust funds. Also, apprentices must be enrolled in union-affiliated training programs.

With this Project Labor Agreement, the Fresno, Madera, Tulare, Kings Building and Construction Trades Council continues to consolidate its monopoly control over public works projects in Fresno County. Much has changed in 20 years since the Fresno City Council outright prohibited contracts that required companies to enter into Project Labor Agreements. Today, unions have a firm political grip on Fresno-based governments.